The present disclosure relates to dialing methods, and more particularly, to dialing methods that enable dialing by name and dialing by number, and related devices.
Portable devices, such as mobile phones, PDA phones, and smart phones are convenient. More and more users carry and use the portable devices for related applications. Generally, a user can input phone numbers for dialing via a keypad. Additionally, the portable device often provides an address book function for address recording and management. A user can also input specific personal data, and retrieve corresponding address records from the address book for dialing accordingly. Further, the portable device provides an option to dial by name or dial by number. In dialing by name, the portable device can retrieve and display address records conforming to part or all of a complete name input by a user, and use the retrieved address record for dialing. In dialing by number, the portable device can retrieve and display address records confirming to part or all of a complete number input by a user, and use the retrieved address record for dialing.
The portable device is limited in size, and provides respective keys with multiple input definitions. For example, on a typical mobile phone containing a QWERTY keypad, the keypad can be used to enter letters or numbers by switching between a letter mode and a number mode. While a user has the option to either dial by name or dial by number, or requires inputting letters or numbers for retrieving address records from the address book, letter/number mode switching is an inconvenient and extra step. For example, when dialing by name, a user has to first switch the keypad to letter mode, or open the address book, which requires switching to the letter mode. After switching to the letter mode, the user is allowed to input data and dial by name.
A typical user does not desire to be forced to purposefully think ahead of time and perform the switch procedure. For example, a user may want to just dial by name when thinking about a name or dial by number when thinking about a number. The switch between the letter and number modes violates the nature of thinking and behavior model of a person, and the time and difficulty for dialing operation is therefore increased.